]]>This article is intended for cases when an error „database is malformed“ appears in P5. It is about checking and repairing structural index errors. Note that only the index's structural integrity is handled here, not its content or actuality.

Checking an index

P5 backup indexes consist of four *.db files, archive indexes have two more files. These reside in a subfolder of the P5 install directory:

Repairing the index (the standard way)

The safest way to repair an index is by recovering an intact version from tape. For a broken backup index that can be achieved by navigating to the Advanced Options → Manage Indexes section, selecting the index and clicking „Check“. The check function will check the index and recover the last saved version from tape. For archive indexes, there is no automatic backup, so hopefully you saved the index yourself.

In case the problem persists

In case the last backup is too old by any reason, or in case that does not overcome the problem and the saved index was already faulty, again the sqlite3 command can be used to dump the index and then create a new index from tape. This command creates a dump of the database and directly reads that dump with another instance of slite3 that creates a new database from the dump:

That way a new file is written, here addrs_new.db. Please check whether the new file has a similar size as the original. The size will probably slightly smaller, as the internal structures are recreated in a more optimized way , but care must be taken that the mechanism did not fail completely by any reason and bigger parts of the data are lost.

In case the size fits, replace the dumped file with the new one, that new file should then be ok.

]]>This article is about the size of files. It sounds trivial, but at a second glance it turns out to hold some surprises.

As an example, lets use a text file that resides on the desktop and contains the text "Hello World". The file has 11 character, each one represented by a byte, so its size should be 11 bytes. When calling a command that lists the file, like ls-l, you will probably get 11 for the size.

But that is not the whole truth. For instance you may want to call du hello.txt. This command lists the disk space used by that file and will (usually) return 4096 bytes. This is because most file systems use blocks of 4 kB to store a file and this file requires one such block.

And that's not all: the file has metadata like attributes, a name, an owner, belongs to a group, has access rights, has several time stamps - when it was created and last modified, it has extended attributes and so on. This space is usually not counted in the file size. And the path to that file also requires some space. On tape or in other sequential formats like in a tar file, it is stored as a string.

On a side note: PresSTORE does not exactly calculate the size of attributes and paths but assumes 1 kB per file to store that information.

On disks, the path is stored in folders. That means there is a folder structure (requiring its own space) that leads to the file. Folders are actually simple lists, requiring some kBytes to store the file names and positions of the contained files. In today's file Explorers and/or Finders, the folder also shows the size of the contents. That is an add on, calculated by the program as a sum of all sizes of its recursive content. What exactly the sum of the sizes represents and how exactly it is calculated depends on the mechanism, and it is volatile, since the calculation may be done a while after the actual modification took place.

As a result, it is not possible to tell, what the size obtained by a certain command or program actually represents. Even using the same program and calculating the size of the same files on two different disks may differ, due to the different block sizes as well as to the other metadata. Comparing a disk to a tape is even worse, as there the additional info like attributes and paths are not counted.(there is another article here: http://portal.archiware.com/support/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/181 that deals with tapes and the size).

These are the basics. However, today's file systems contain files where even the above size discussion is not complete:

Hardlinks: are mutliple directory entries for the same file, probably with different names. So there are two files that occupy the same disk space. In sums of sizes, these files are sometimes counted once, sometimes twice. Some tools, including PresSTORE Backup, resolve hard links to copies. Some others like PresSTORE Synchronize keep them as links.

Sparse files: are special files with a big size (lets say Gigabytes) that are sparsely filled, i.e. the content is stored at very different positions. Most file systems can handle such files in a way that only the portions that contain data are truly written to disk. Such files are bigger than the disk space they require, i.e. the have a bigger size.

Softlinks: Softlinks are files that contain a pointer to another file. They have usually no noticeable size. Softlinks can also be created for folders. PresSTORE treats softlinks as they are, as pointers (and does not follow them).

When building sums over file sizes, different tools may count these sizes differently.

Last but not least, there is the size calculation and display issue regarding what a Gigabyte actually is.

Older systems, like OSX up to 10.5 and also PresSTORE up to P4, used multiples of 1024. That is a kilobyte is 1024 bytes, a megabyte is 1024 kilobytes and a gigabyte is 1024 megabytes. Newer systems use multiples of 1000 instead. You may now think that the difference is 2.4 %, but with bigger sizes that difference grows significantly.

]]>Every DDP device sold by Ardis (http://www.dynamicdrivepool.com/) comes preinstalled with the P5 software, incl. a free P5 Backup license to a standalone tape drive. There are several way of how P5 can be used with a DDP.

1.

The DDP can be setup as a P5 server. Using a SAS controller card, a standalone tape drive can be attached directly to the DDP. This setup allows for the data stored on the DDP to be backed up to a standalone tape drive. In order to utilize a tape library, a P5 media changer license can be purchased. In order to backup other servers via the P5 server running on the DDP, additional P5 client licenses can be purchased.

2.

The DDP can be setup as a P5 client. This option should appeal to customers who already have a P5 server installed on their network. The DDP would then be configured as a P5 client on the P5 server. Its contents could then be backed up to storage devices attached to the P5 server. The P5 Backup license that came with the DDP could be transferred to the P5 server, if necessary. One advantage of this setup is that it limits the load on the DDP server. The DDP server would simply be a backup/archive/sync client. The external P5 server would handle most of the load.

3.

The DDP volume(s) can be mounted on the external P5 server via iSCSI. This would allow for the data stored on those DDP volumes to be backed up, archived or synchronized as if it was located on a locally mounted volume on the P5 server. Windows an Linux operating systems include the required iSCSI initiator software. The DDP software package includes the iSCSI initiator software for Macs.

4.

NOT RECOMMENDED: DDP volumes can be shared and mounted via SMB. However, due to the inherent latency, this method is not recommended for backups, archives or syncs. Use one of the methods listed above instead.

5.

P5 Synchronize can be used to mirror DDP volumes from one DDP to another. A P5 Synchronize license is required (a separate purchase).

6.

For an upgrade to a P5 Archive license please contact your local Archiware reseller.

"The XSAN and library are in separate zones; one zone contains one ATTO (two channels) of the backup server and the four LTO-5 drives, the other zone contains the second ATTO in the backup server and the XSAN storage.As soon as the second schedule job started ... the first job stopped all I/O and the entire PresSTORE process tree hung. Neither job did anything.I waited ten minutes and then tried to cancel the jobs which did not work (even though the log might show job cancelled the job actually remained active). So I had to hard reset the server.

And do you know why the ATTO, with two channels in the same zone, I see the LTO drives only connected to one channel? I have attached a screenshot of this behavior. Both channels of the first HBA are in the same zone, and both channels of the second HBA are in the same zone. Yet the disks only show up on channel 2 and the tapes also only show up on channel 2."

The solution, as reported by the customer:

"Multipathing was the issue in this case. We had two channels connected to the fabric and in the same zone as all four tape drives.ATTO tech support recommended that we either disable multipathing (and failover) or zone the drives so that each channel can see only specific drives.This resolved our issues.ATTO on Mac has by default multipathing and failover enabled and this is not reflected properly in the ATTO Config GUI but shows up properly in the System Profiler (under Fibrechannel)."

]]>Question:

I'm trying to setup a Linux machine as my B2Go server, but I'm getting the following error message: "The Data Storage Directory is not supported."

Answer:

On Linux, please enable the user_xattr mount option for the ext3/4 filesystem.

It is NOT possible to use the root of the filesystem as root for the repository. Instead, create a subfolder and use that one for the B2Go repository.

]]>Please note: Archiware does not provide technical support for PAM related login issue.

The following solution was provided by acustomer for the benefit of others:

------------

B2G installed on Ubuntu 14.04. The ldap auth provided by libpam-ldap package. At the system i can see all users from ldap, and i can login in any ldap account.I tried login from a workstation machine to the b2g server using my ldap login+password, it doesn't work.But b2g can't do that.

To be able to access the P5 web interface, the firewall had to be disabled or a firewall exception had to be created for port 8100.

keywords: 64bit centos

]]>Starting with P5 version 5.5, client to client synchronize plans are supported.

When a sync job is defined to transfer data from one P5 client to another, i.e. not to/from the P5 server (localhost) itself, P5 attempts to setup a direct connection from one P5 client to the other. To do so, the P5 server sends to the source P5 client the IP address, TCP port and credentials of the target P5 client as configured in the client settings on the P5 server.This implies that the clients must be able to see each other with those values.

Specifically, it implies the source P5 client must be able to connect to the target P5 client using the TCP IP address that is set for the target client in the client configuration on the P5 server. In case the source client and the P5 server are not in the same network, that may fail, as the target P5 client may be visible at different IP addresses.

One way to resolve that would be to specify a DNS name instead of an TCP/IP address in the target P5 client settings on the P5 server. The P5 server and the source P5 client would then both have be able to resolve that given DNS name to the correct TCP/IP address, but the resolution may differ on both machines.

]]>Curious on how to generate previews and proxies for P5 Archive on a Mac? This helpful article by our partner David Fox from JPY Ltd. teaches you how to install ImageMagick and FFmpeg on macOS with the free, open-source software package management system Homebrew. Click here to learn more!]]>Here's what I did to get it to work:

- I created a new archive plan for archiving audio files.- In the previews tab, I clicked on 'New', then 'ffmpeg'...- Under 'File name extensions, I deleted all listed file extensions listed and added '.wav'.- I then clicked on the arrow next to 'command options', deleted what was there and pasted 'ffmpeg -i SRCPATH -loglevel quiet' into the field (without the single quotes).- Finally, I clicked the 'Apply' button and closed the archive plan settings.

I then archived a single .wav file I had earlier copied on my Desktop. The file was archived successfully and a preview .mp4 file was generated. The job log showed the following:

Only installations running the latest version of P 4.4 can be upgraded to P5. Installations running versions 3.x, 4.1, 4.2, 4.3 or 4.4 MUST be upgraded to 4.4.14 before attempting an upgrade to P5.

For example, a customer who is still running PresSTORE 3.2.7 would need to first upgrade to 4.2.4, then 4.3.7, then 4.4.14 - and only then upgrade to P5.x.

- The first step prior to any upgrade should be to stop P3 or P4, to make a copy of the PresSTORE installation folder and to store that copy in a safe place. This backup copy is one's insurance policy in case something goes wrong - as it would allow a user to go back to the beginning and start over. Once a copy of the PresSTORE installation folder has been made, don't forget to restart the software.

- The next step should be to run a database check of all index databases - as a corrupted database cannot be upgraded or converted. For instructions on how to check the index databases, please refer to the user manual.

- Continuing to use the example of a user who is running version 3.2.7, the user should then download and install version 4.2.4: http://www.archiware.com/download-4-2-4.258.1.html . Following the install, login to version 4.2.4 and check the configuration, indexes etc. to make sure everything is still there and works.

- Next, download and install version 4.4.14: http://www.archiware.com/version-4.4 . Again, Login to version 4.4.14 and check your configuration, indexes etc. following the install to make sure everything still works.

- Finally, download and install version 5.1.x: http://www.archiware.com/version-5.1 . Login to version 5.1.x and check your configuration, indexes etc. following the install to make sure everything still works.

At this point, a customer should be able to see their configuration in P5 as it existed in prior versions and they should be able to browse their existing backup and archive indexes. Older backup and archive indexes should be listed in the restore browser under a P4 heading. Those indexes cannot be searched - only browsed.

Backup indexes cannot be converted to the P5 format. Therefore a user will be required to start over with fresh backups in P5. Archive indexes, on the other hand, can be converted to the P5 formatted. Once an archive index has been converted, a user can continue to use the archive index with P5. P5 indexes are searchable.

If, at any point, a users runs into issues during the upgrade, he/she should create a support ticket through our website, describe the issue and attach the P3 or P4 support data to the ticket. Users should refer to the P3/P4 user manual for instructions on how to download the support data.

...Warning: Drive awst0 with serial no. CXXXXXXX can no longer be accessed by the OS and should be disabled.Warning: Drive awst1 with serial no. CYYYYYYY can no longer be accessed by the OS and should be disabled....Notice: Other Job Error: Job error: 'Labeling for pool ArchivePool' (10016)..Cannot open jukebox awjb0 (opening device handle: connection timed out)...

Customer discovered the following solution:

"The issue is we’re connected through a Brocade fibre switch. The fix is quite simple: on both the drive and the fibre HBA, we need to fix the speed and topology so they don’t auto-negotiate. Since we’re in a switch, with need PTP topology and fixed 8 Gb/sec speed. Once these are set, the Archiware/Library communication works fine."

The media (tape) related tables with positions where the data is stored.

Both parts are independent from each other. In case for instance a file is saved on three tapes, it has three database records in the media part but just one in the file structure.

When deleting or relabeling a volume, the files of that volume can no longer be restored. In the index, they will however still be visible:On deletion of a media (tape), the media part of the file will be marked as deleted. However, the file part is not, as that would require a check for each file whether it is on another tape. As such a test takes time, it is not done immediately.

When browsing in the Restore areas in P5, only the file and folder structure is regarded to allow fast browsing. In case the media part of the index would be tested, too, browsing would be rather slow. So it is possible that files which cannot be restored anymore are still visible in the index. They will remain visible until the index has been cleaned up.

It is always possible to check whether or not a file can be restored by opening the versions windows from the context menu. That window shows all media where the file is stored on and in which version.

Note that this is handled differently for files and folders: even if there are "versions" of of folder in the index, these are not exposed as they refer to the time stamps and other attributes of the folder, but not to its contents. A folder with a timestamp from May can contain files that are much newer. So the "version" of a folder would be misleading.Some folders may even appear without time stamp, these were not saved but exist only as nodes (to navigate to saved files and folders).

To figure out whether a folder contains files (without navigating down the folder tree), one can select the folder and click "restore to". P5 will then count the files and folders below and sum up the size before the actual restore is started. The restore can be cancelled before files are really restored, but the window shows size and number of the contained files.

In Backup indexes, the cleanup happens automatically after the next backup job using that index. The cleanup will appear in the index tables when 10% of the contained data is invalidated. So it may appear that if only a few files are affected, the cleanup is delayed.

In Archive indexes, there is no automated cleanup. If required it is possible to execute the cleanup manually. The cleanup can be called through the nsdchat utility with the following commands:

This call does the cleanup of elements no longer on tape. Please make sure that during the cleanup, no archive or restore jobs are running that use this index.

/usr/local/aw/bin/nsdchat -c cli::index::purge Default-Archive true

This call removes empty folders in the index. It does so recursively and runs for the given number of seconds. In the example, these are 600 seconds or 10 minutes.Please make sure that during the cleanup, no archive or restore jobs are running that use this index,

A: Depending on your preview settings, a generated preview file may exceed the maximum file size of 128MB (134217728 bytes). If and when that happens, P5 will not add the preview file to the archive index database. When subsequently browsing to that file in the archive index restore browser - no preview will be shown.

The 128MB size limit is hard coded and cannot be changed. The reason being that allowing preview files of any size to be added to an archive index would potentially fill up a server's boot volume (where, by default, archive indexes are being stored). The index folder can be moved, but still - allowing preview files of any size could potentially fill up even bigger and non-system volumes. 128MB seemed to be a reasonable compromise most customers could live with.

The solution to this issue would be to change the preview generation parameters (e.g. resolution, duration, color depth, codec being used etc.) in order to ensure that any generated preview files would come in at under 128MB in size.

]]>http://www.red.com/) makes cool cameras. Wouldn't it be great if P5 Archive could create previews of R3D Raw files? With Red's redline tool you can. Here's how:

- Make sure the file is made executable ('chmod +x mkthumb_r3d.sh').- In the preview settings pane of the P5 Archive plan, click on 'New' > 'Add a custom script'.- Add '.r3d' and '.R3D' under file extensions and the path of the script under 'Preview converter script:' (e.g. '/Users/admin/mkthumb_r3d.sh'.- Click on 'Apply' and 'Apply'.

An important thing to note is that in order for the script to work, it cannot generate any standard or error output. Redirecting any output to the null device ('&> /dev/null') takes care of that.

Final note: We do not offer support for help with custom scripts. Again, the above script is a very basic example that is meant to help you get started with writing your own scripts.]]>This device is not supported.]]>When restoring data from tapes that were written with cloning enabled, P5 will sometimes ask for a tape that's not available - possibly because that tape of a clone pair is being stored off-site. To force P5 to use the other tape of the clone pair (i.e. the one that is on-site), set the off-site tape to 'disabled' status. P5 will then request the on-site clone tape.

In a future release, P5 will first look for on-site (available) tapes before requesting off-site (unavailable) tapes.

Along those same lines... a restore job may sometimes report something like '0 files on 0 volumes' for files or folders selected to be restored. The reason for a message like that is typically that the volume in question is currently set to disabled status. Re-enable the volume and the restore will most likely work.

]]>When saving data to the cloud with Backup or Archive, P5 maintains the cloud access through disk volumes in a virtual disk library. Disk volumes in P5 as listed in the P5 volume manager are represented on disk as a folder in the virtual disk library. This article is about accessing the data when the disk is lost or inaccessible by any reason.

As preparation, you need the P5 configuration database that was used on the system and that "knows" about written data. In case that file is missing (for instance in case the whole P5 installation was lost), please check the article first to recover the configuration: recover from scratch

Then, you will need to create a folder where the virtual disk library resides.

To do so, look up the folder by opening in P5 the Storage Manager, double click the disk library in question, then check the entry for "Volumes directory:". That is the folder where the disk library was. Either simply create that folder, or, where that is not possible, delete that disk libary and create a new one with the same "Number of container files" and "File size" values. In case the disk check does not allow that due to missing space, create a smaller disk library and after creation, double click the new entry and edit the values. During these step(s), do not label any volumes.

Next, you will need to identify the volumes you want to restore from. One way is to start the restore, then the restore job will list the volumes, as an alternative the volumes should be visible in the Volume manager in P5. Normally all disk volumes are listed with their position in the virtual disk libraries, excepts for those on a disconnected external disk. Those volumes left over are most probably those volumes that were on the lost disk.

Now you are ready to proceed:Create subfolders in the virtual disk library folder, each with the name of a Volume-ID as shown in P5, for instance "10001", "10002" ...Each folder represents a disk volume, there may be as many volumes as there are slots defined in the virtual tape library. Then run a barcode inventory in the virtual disk library.

That procedure should make the volume be listed with its position in P5, and - provided the volume exists in the cloud - P5 is able to restore data. During restore the required local information is created in the volume folder. For volumes that are assigned to a cloud storage WITHOUT local copy, that control information is sufficient and P5 is able to restore and to save data to the cloud. For those volumes that are assigned to a cloud WITH local copy, each restore job will also rebuild the local copy, but only for the restored files. To completely recover the local volume from the cloud, each file on that volume would have to be restored.The restore operation may however be written to a temp folder and removed n case the only purpose was to recover the local copy of the volume.

]]>This issue is apparently caused by a bug in RedHat / CentOS 7. Please see here:

Notice the generic device names in the last column. If sg is not loaded you don’t have the last column.

]]>Standard technical support is being provided through our support website. Depending on the issue, we may require a phone call or a remote control session with a customer. We use (and own a license for) Teamviewer (http://www.teamviewer.com) for remote support.

Whenever we request remote access to your server via Teamviewer, please make sure to install the current version of Teamviewer. We strongly recommend downloading the Teamviewer QuickSupport version. It is available for Mac, Linux and Windows and does not require anything to be installed on your server or workstation. The software can be found here:

When reading from a NAS via Archive, Backup or Synchronize via SMB from Windows, there is a pitfall:

Windows doe not have a ctime attribute in the sense of that it shows modifications to the file attributes like Unix systems have. So on Windows, P5 emulates a ctime attribute, maintained in an alternate data fork, that is written when the file's archive-bit is set. This has two side effects in case the mounted file system itself is not a Windows NTFS system:

In case the mounted file system is also accessed from other OS, then this emulated ctime will also update the ctime attribute of the file that is shown on linux systems (this may depend on the details in the SMB server implementation).

Also, depending on the underlying file systems, the data fork may be stored not together with the file itself but may be physically located elsewhere on the storage. That means that when reading the emulated ctime attribute, additional disk head movements are required, and that in turn makes the access rather slow.

As a consequence, we suggest to turn off that ctime emulation when accessing non-Windows -hosts via SMB from Windows.

]]>When using Synchronize in a Disk-to-Disk-to-Tape scenario, it is recommended not to use the linked cycles in Synchronize.

Previous data can be kept in Synchronize as snapshots stored in a __CYCLES folder. These snapshots (or cycles) can be created using hard links for unchanged files. In case the synchronize target data is subject to subsequent Backups or Synchronize jobs, a side effect appears due to these file links. In case a snapshot is created or deleted, a new hardlink for a file is created or an old hardlink is deleted. Any such operation changes the ctime stamp of the original file because the files inode is changed. Subsequent jobs will take that as sign that the file has changed and will save it again.

As a result, a sync job with active cycle control may cause subsequent jobs on the target to save all files again.

]]>You may want to complete a migration of your Archiware installation for many reasons. When migrating from one Mac host to another, the process isn’t complicated, but should be completed cautiously. This guide describes how to complete this migration and retain your configuration, indices, and log files during the process.

Please note:

The configuration directory for version P4.x and P5.x differ.

With P4, the configuration directory is:

/usr/local/aw/conf/

With P5, the configuration directory is:

/usr/local/aw/config/

** This guide will utilize the installation directories for P5. If you are migrating a P4 installation you will need to use its configuration directory instead.

Prerequisite:

You will be duplicating your configuration directory, which includes all your indices, and generated previews. Keep in mind that this could be large, and may take a few minutes to create the tar package. You will want to ensure that you have disk space available locally, or have storage attached where this tar package could be directed if local storage space is limited.

Begin on the current Archiware host machine.

Ensure there are no active jobs.

Open the Terminal application.

Run the following command to stop the P5 service:

sudo /usr/local/aw/stop-server

Enter your administrative password when prompted.

The process will look like this:

user$ sudo /usr/local/aw/stop-server

Password:

Stopping PresStore application servers, be patient...

lexxsrv pid: 83 (stopped)

Stopped 1 from 1 application servers.

With the service now stopped, you need to create the tar package and copy it to your preferred destination, in this case its headed to my desktop.

Move to the Archiware installation directory.

In Terminal:

cd /usr/local/aw/config/

Then enter the following command:

$ sudo tar -cf ~/Desktop/archiware_config_backup.tar .

Then do the same, if you wish, to package the directory containing all your logs:

sudo tar -cf ~/Desktop/archiware_logs_backup.tar log/

The above will grab the configuration and log directories (and their sub-directories), combining them into the tar packages and placing them on the Desktop. You will now see “archiware_backup.tar” and "archiware_logs_backup.tar" (or whatever you named them) on your Desktop (or whatever destination you chose).

Copy these packages to the new hardware. I copied them from the desktop of one machine to the desktop of the other.

That is all for the current installation, you can now proceed to the new hardware.

Once installed, you can ensure its running by logging into the P5 web interface.

(127.0.0.1:8000/login)

Open the Terminal application.

Run the following command to stop the P5 service:

sudo /usr/local/aw/stop-server

Enter your administrative password when prompted.

The command will perform as it did on the original host.

In the Terminal again

Navigate to the installation directory:

cd /usr/local/aw/config

Unpack the tar package from the Desktop (or destination you chose) to the current “config” directory.

sudo tar -xvf ~/Desktop/archiware_backup.tar

Unpack the logs tar package from the Desktop (or destination you chose) to the current "log" directory.

cd /usr/local/aw/log

sudo tar -xvf ~/Desktop/archiware_logs_backup.tar

The step above will unpack the tar file and overwrite the empty installation directories you just installed with your data from the other installation. Depending on its size, this step could take a few minutes or much longer depending on your index and configuration.

You can now open your browser and navigate to P5 and login. It will appear as it did on the previous host.

If you had tape hardware configured you will need to remove that from this installation and configure it again using the Library wizard. This is necessary because the attached hardware would have different identification information on the new hardware and P5 will not be able to identify it properly with the old configuration.

Once this is complete, you will also need to perform an Inventory of that library so you will have an accurate volume list.

You now need to complete a Host transfer for your licensing. This will transfer your license from the old host to the new. This is done from within the Archiware Portal. You will see the Portal link at the top of our homepage.

It is not possible to specify a domain name in the P5 login mask. P5 will check whether a user is local tothe machine or is a user of the same domain as the host itself. User accounts belonging to other domainsare not acceptable.

We do not use AD in-house, but have tested AD functionality with P5. Using this Microsoft Technet blog article:

]]>FileVault is a system in OS X 10.4 - 10.6 that protects files in the users home directories on a Macintosh computer by encrypting the home folder. While a user is logged in, his/her home folder including subfolders and files will appear like any normal home folder. It can be synchronized, backed up or archived as such.

However, upon logging off, FileVault encrypts the file system and stores it in a new image called sparse bundle, that among other files contains a directory holding chunks of 8 MB of the encrypted files.

In order to save these protected home directories using Synchronize, Backup or Backup2Go in PresSTORE while the user is NOT logged in, just save the /Users folder and define a filter to include all folders with a name ending in .sparsebundle for the Backup2Go template being used.

PresSTORE will then save the encrypted contents.

The sparse bundles allow further to create incremental backups, as only those 8 MB chunks with changes must be saved.

Notes:

Using PresSTORE with FileVault on OS X versions prior to 10.5 is not recommended.

It is possible to restore the complete FileVault Home directory, but it is not possible to perform partial restore operations.

Please note: File Vault 2 (OS X 10.7+) works differently. It encrypts the entire disk. An authorized user must have unlocked the disk before its contents becomes accessible.

Example filter definition:

]]>Up until now:
A volume/tape will be reserved by a job to write when

online, meaning it can be found in a library or drive -and-

"Appendable" -and-

not "Suspect".

A tape received "Recylable" status when

not "Suspect" -and-

"Full" or "Closed" and expired -OR- when expired and the pool is configured with a "Greedy" policy.

NEW:

An expired tape is not considered for writing any longer -AND-it will in that case be set to "Recyclable" regardless of its "Full" or "Closed" state.

Not changed:

A tape will be recycled depending on the chosen pool policy. "Greedy" will recycle tapes as soon as they receive the "Recyclable" status. Otherwise, empty tapes will have preference.

Rationale:

This is the easiest and most understandable way to ensure that "Progressive" backup while doing retention saves those files that need to be re-saved on a new set of media.

For the other backup strategies, this does not have any adverse consequences. On the contrary, it ensures that the next backup has more space to save its data.

The only conceivable drawback is that expired data may now be deleted earlier than it had been previously.

Attempting to use the MS Windows VSS Setup on this client but the job reports

"Failed to create a mapping from /E /Y""

UPDATE:

I was able to get VSS backup working on windows server 2016. Delegation needs to be enabled on both servers, and the user account running archiware on both servers must be in the backup users group in AD.

It is now working but there are periodic failures to map drive letters in the VSS section of the client. If I reboot the client process on the target server it resolves it for about 5 days]]>Q:

If we run a restore for files that parks on 4 different tapes and only 3 of this tapes are in the library, does Archiware always restore the first 3 tapes then ask about the 4th one ? What is the protocol ?

A:

Using the above example, P5 would first restore the data from the tapes that are 'online' (i.e. in the tape library), then request the remaining tape(s) to be inserted into the tape library. Once the 'offline' tape(s) has/have been inserted into the library, P5 would restore the remaining files.